Tor Responds To The Cyber Attack On Its Network, Allegedly Executed By The Same Hacker Gang That Took Down Xbox Live And PlayStation Network

The Tor Project on Saturday morning acknowledged a cyber attack
on this network, and provided the following statement to Business
Insider:

This looks like a regular attempt at a Sybil attack: the
attackers have signed up many new
relays in hopes of becoming a large fraction of the network. But
even though they are running thousands of new relays, their
relays currently make up less than 1% of the Tor network by
capacity. We are working now to remove these relays from the
network before they become a threat, and we don't expect any
anonymity or performance effects based on what we've seen so
far.

Tor's service keeps users anonymous by bouncing
communications around a large network of computers known as
"volunteer nodes." But
as Gizmodo pointed out on Friday, if one group can
control most of the nodes — which is what Lizard Squad reportedly
attempted to do — it may “be able to eavesdrop on a
substantial number of vulnerable users.” That obviously has
massive implications on the privacy of millions of people who
rely on the anonymous service.

It’s still unclear who attacked Tor, but the
notorious hacker gang “Lizard
Squad,” which also claims responsibility for taking
down PlayStation Network and Xbox Live for two straight days over
the Christmas holiday, also
tweeted they were behind the Tor attack on
Friday.

To clarify, we are no longer attacking PSN or Xbox. We are testing our new Tor 0day.

The Tor
Projectis one of the most effective
sites for encrypted communication, making it one of the most
important internet services in the world. Whistleblowers
like Edward Snowden have used the service, and it's proven
pivotal in "dissident movements” in Iran and
Egypt.

A few hours
after Lizard Squad announced it was focusing on Tor, the
international activist group Anonymous
told the Lizards to “stand down” and stop attacking
Tor,
adding, "We don't give a f--k
about corporate bulls--t networks, we do care about 3rd world
communications."

Hey @LizardMafia don't fuck with the Tor network. People need that service because of corrupt governments. Stand the fuck down.

Based on Tor’s thorough
response, however, it seems like the issue is being taken
seriously by the organization, and its users will have little to
worry about in that regard.

Meanwhile, days after the initial attacks began,
we’re still waiting on word from both Sony and Microsoft as to
what exactly happened to their game networks over the Christmas
holiday. They have yet to confirm whether or not the outages were
the result of a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS)
attack,which overloads network servers
by having botnets send a massive amount of bogus requests, or if
it was something else entirely.